


Blackout

by AppyNation



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: And anxiety, Gen, Post Season 2, Sickfic, So season 2 spoilers, because who doesn't like to see their favorite characters suffering, some angst in there too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 10:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10007099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppyNation/pseuds/AppyNation
Summary: Lance is sick, but Keith panicking about leading Voltron is a bit more pressing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A sickfic I wrote because of a wonderful prompt I received on tumblr. Feel free to follow me there! This is my first sickfic, so be gentle :')
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/appynation

Lance may not be confident about a lot of things in his life, but he knew one thing for sure:

He was _sick._

What began as a low throbbing headache a day or so prior had since escalated to a full-fledged migraine, accompanied with congestion, and dry clamminess of what he _hoped_ wasn’t the start of a fever. He had tried to brush it off, telling himself that it was just exhaustion from the back to back missions they’d been on, but the way Lance woke up that morning made him finally accept the fact that it was more than just being tired. He pulled on his jacket with a bit more effort than normal before he stifled a sneeze or two into the crook of his elbow as soon as he got the jacket on. He groaned in pain as the throbbing in his head worsened and he had to admit it: he needed help.

He crossed his arms, walking out of his room as the door hissed open. Who could he go to? Allura and Coran were no doubt neck deep in plans for their next mission, he didn’t want to bother them. And Pidge and Hunk had been talking about staying up all night to work on some tracking tech to find Shiro, so he assumed they were either still working or passed out by now. He walked out of his room, his eyes half lidded as he looked down both ends of the chilly hallway. Man, what he wouldn’t give to be able to tell Shiro. He probably still wouldn’t have, he hated to worry the team on his behalf, but his leader’s kind eyes and gentle actions were badly missed right about now. It had only been a couple weeks since his disappearance, and the loss still fell heavy on the team. No one was resting easy, not until they found Shiro, but of course it had to be _Lance_ that fell ill from it all. He bit his lip glancing to his right as he walked down to the next door.

“Keith?”

Lance knocked weakly on his door, suppressing a couple coughs under his breath as he waited for the door to slide open, or Keith’s voice to beckon him in. He heard neither. Lance frowned and glanced around, had he gone to the training deck? He seemed to be doing that a lot after Shiro’s disappearance… well, even _more_ than he had previously. Out of everyone, Keith had taken it the hardest. It made sense, him and Shiro had known each other before they became paladins, and now with him gone… well, Keith had voiced to everyone Shiro’s wishes of a replacement leader.

Lance was about to turn and go back to his room when he heard a noise come from inside the room. He frowned, so Keith _was_ in there. Was he ignoring him? ‘Ass.’ He thought to himself, his sour mood from being ill flaring even more with the thought that the one person he thought he could go to on this ship was ignoring him and damn it, he was going to give Keith a piece of his mind. He reached over and pressed on the button to open the door, the panel sliding open with a hiss. Lance already had his mouth open, ready to spew his thoughts on the matter before it all faltered. Keith was in his room, sitting on the ground with his knees pulled up to his chest and his gloved hands rung and gripped into his hair.

Lance’s eyes widened and any form of negativity flew out the airlock as he walked over hesitantly.

“Keith? Hey, buddy… you okay?”

“Leave me alone, Lance.” A muffled voice sounded from in between his knees. It was a little too shaky for Lance’s liking. He didn’t like hearing Keith like this.

“Hey, come on. If something’s bothering you, you know you can talk to me, right?” Lance suggested as he sat down next to Keith, crossing his legs as he put a hand on his head momentarily to try and stop the room from spinning. He shook it off as he continued, “I know you think you have to go through all of this alone, but know that we’re all going through this too—“

Before Lance could finish his sentence he was cut off by Keith, who finally looked up at him, the threat of tears glistening in his violet eyes.

“You’re _not_ all going through this too! You’re not the one Shiro put in charge to lead Voltron! You’re not the one who now has to make sure we all don’t _die_! You’re not the one who will be blamed if all of this goes to hell in a handbasket!” Keith was yelling, his breath erratic as he gripped his hair again, his voice softening if only in defeat, “I don’t know why Shiro thought I could handle this… he should’ve given the command to Allura. Allura would be an amazing leader! I… I’m just some damn dropout who relies too much on instinct to even _think_ about leading a team and—“

“Keith.” Lance interrupted, putting a hand on his fellow paladin as he subtly cleared his throat, all thoughts of telling Keith how he was feeling had disappeared, he needed Lance much more right now. “Calm down. Breathe.”

Keith looked down at the floor he sat on for another moment before taking a few breaths, his shoulders relaxing slightly as he leaned back against the side of his bed. “I can’t do this, Lance…”

“Nonsense.” Lance gave a grin, “I mean, obviously Shiro chose you for a reason, right? I feel like we should give him the benefit of the doubt that he knew what he was doing.” He said in the most cheerful way he could. “I mean, look! You basically lead us through our last two missions, and they turned out fine! I think you’re doing fine.”

“Yeah?” Keith glanced over at Lance slightly, noting that it was strange how pale the blue paladin seemed. But perhaps it was just the harsh lighting of his room.

“Yeah! Like, holy quiznak, when you took down that drone right before it could fire at me, you saved me dude! That seems pretty leaderly to me. And when—“ his peptalk was cut off by a string of wet, congested coughs that he buried once again in the elbow of his jacket. “—And when—“ he tried again. When had the room begun spinning again?

“Lance??”

He could hear Keith’s voice, but it sounded muffled. Like he was underwater. He looked at Keith’s face, it took far too long for him to register that the black haired boy was looking back at him with a wide eyed look of concern. “—when—“ he tried to start once more before the room tilted sharply, his body following along with it.

“LANCE!”

\--

When Lance came to, he was in a bed. _His_ bed, he concluded by the smell of his conditioner on the pillow. How had he gotten here? He opened his bleary eyes and brought the heel of his palm to his eye to try and rub the blurriness away when a shift from the bottom of the bed made him jump and look in that direction. At the end of the bed was the red paladin himself, his arms crossed and his head leaned back against the wall the bed stood against, his eyes closed. Keith opened his eyes slightly after a second, glancing at Lance like it was something he had been doing regularly before he did a double take and sat up straight, “You’re awake.” He didn’t even try to mask the relief that coated his words.

“Y-yeah” Lance rasped, his sore voice not cooperating as he coughed a few times into his pillow.

“No, no talking.” Keith scooted up closer, “you scared the hell out of me. Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well??”

Lance opened his mouth to speak before a warning look from Keith made him close his mouth with a frown. “You want me to answer you or not??” he choked out.

“I just— _ugh_.” Keith groaned as he exhaled, “Just try to go back to sleep, okay? I told Hunk, and he’s trying to make you the space equivalent of chicken noodle soup. So…” Keith’s voice softened, “just rest up until he figures that out.”

Lance simply gave a nod as he turned on his side glancing up at Keith as his tired eyes slowly began to shut.

Keith sighed pinching the bridge of his nose, and Lance’s final thoughts before dozing back off was that that was a habit Keith had definitely picked up from Shiro over the time being spent together.

He knows Keith is going to do just fine as leader.


End file.
